Colombian government negotiators flew back to Havana yesterday after the Farc liberation movement freed the recently captured General Ruben Alzate, an army corporal and military lawyer on Sunday morning.

The country’s largest guerilla army handed over its captives to a humanitarian mission led by the International Red Cross.

Gen Alzate, seized two weeks ago, was the highest-ranking military officer captured by Farc in 50 years. President Juan Manuel Santos reacted to his seizure by suspending peace talks despite undertakings given when the peace process began.

The Farc negotiation team was intent on preventing a permanent rupture to the talks so it dispatched leading commander Pastor Alape from Havana to oversee the handover.

Mr Santos had made resumption of peace talks dependent on the safe return of the general’s group, together with two rank-and-file soldiers taken during a firefight earlier this month.

Government chief negotiator Humberto de la Calle said that members of his negotiating team would initiate a two-day evaluation of recent events with Farc.

He claimed that the government would push for ways to speed up talks and de-escalate the conflict even before a deal is reached.

However, the Farc negotiations team expressed its dissatisfaction with government manoeuvring, insisting that it was necessary to “redesign the game.”

The Farc delegation said that a process that has reached the present stage and is “preparing to discuss the most critical issues of peace cannot be subject to any hasty and thoughtless attitudes that postpone the advent of our reconciliation.

“We invite President Santos, with our heart in our hands and our minds full of common sense, to consider that we can no longer permit the absurd situation of carrying out dialogues of peace in the midst of war.

“It’s time for a bilateral ceasefire, an armistice, so that no military event can serve to justify the interruption of such a beautiful and historic task of making peace for a nation that longs for it.”